5. Kitchen Range, Stove and Ventilation

We begin consideration of light and heavy machine-assisted kitchen inventory from the most important (and heavy) thing – kitchen range and exhaust ventilation

So, the Kitchen Range

The question is: what type of the range is more preferable – gas or electric? In ninety nine percent of cases it does not depend upon our preferences – the choice was made by the architect, who designed our house :). However if there is a possibility of choice, one should pay attention to the following:

- it is certain that it is more natural, easy and comfortable to cook on a gas stove.

One doesn't need to wait for the stove to be heated up to the temperature needed or cooled. Moreover for some of us the matter of cooking with live fire is very pleasant of itself. However:

- Electrical range is much more safer.

First, you don't need to be afraid that your old family chaps would open the gas cock and forget to fire it (Note from translator: there are still many old fashioned gas stoves used in Russia, those do not have the contemporary and well-known guard functions.)

Second, as it is mentioned above, the gas stove means open flame, and this implies more risk from the fire safety point of view.

Third, the design philosophy: the gas cock is more complicated thing and therefore less reliable and durable.

At last: modern electrical ovens are undoubtedly more handy, for instance, because of more even heating.

An obvious shortcoming of an electric kitchen range – an extra time needed for heating, however electric ranges with glassceramics surface "lacks" this discomfort almost completely.

As you see, everything has own pluses and minuses.

Nevertheless, there is a distinct compromise settlement: module kitting-up.

As a rule, when we want a kitchen made to order, we prefer to build-in the range and the stove not as a single unit, but as two independent modules. Thus, if it is technically feasible, you can build-in a gas range and an electric stove. By the way, if your budget affords this, it is certainly better to choose an electrical stove with steam and convection heater automatic functions. Convection will allow you to cook (without lack of quality) on 2 (or even 3) surfaces at the same time and the function of steam spray will also find very handy applications.

The next thing is Kitchen Exhaust Ventilation

When choosing the exhaust ventilation, first of all one should:

- bring into correlation the efficiency of the ventilation (for ex., litres/minute) with the kitchen space one have.

- make sure the borders of the ventilation's "umbrella" protrude at least 10 sm over the HWD of the kitchen range. This will provide the best performance for the ventilation.

What other mechanisms and tools we may need for our kitchen?

Meat Grinder

I think this item does not need much explanation. The main criterion when choosing grinder – the compromise between the grinder's power and size.

Mixer is a must

You can't do without mixer nowadays. You can shake up some cream, or even mashed potato. It is desirable that your mixer would have variable rate and descent power.

Blender

Buying blender should be considered in case you are keen on puree–soups (sauce soups) or creams. If not, then blender is definitely not the breath of your life, certainly unless you love blending fancy cocktails. However, if you decided to buy one, then choose blender with a thick-walled glass bottle. It will serve you longer and look neater.

At last – Kitchen Machine

To tell you the truth, I personally think kitchen machine is absolutely useless. Anything it is able to give, you can do handmade or with a slicer, and even faster and with better quality. Moreover, if you use a kitchen machine the dishes loose special tire with the cook's hands, and this is bad. The cook's hands always add some kind of positive energy to the dish being cooked, but this electro-monster rather makes the dish “empty”.

For all that, if you enjoy assembling the whole thing, grate an onion with it, then pull the stuff out (loosing nearly a have on it's walls), then disassemble the machine, then wash and dry the parts, and finally repeat these steps again and again :) — then I can admit, that you certainly need a kitchen machine. Just go and get one!